Overclocking

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opendriver

opendriver

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I was stunned on how easy it was; Went to the bios, changed the FSB Mhz from 133 to 157 and upped the voltage to 1.7V, restarted, and bam. Overclocked.

Everything is cool and stable, except when I went for 3.2 GHz, windows didnt boor right, and it just looped back to the bios

Who else is running an OC'ed computer?
 
I would certainly scale back from 1.7v, anything over 1.55v could cause Sudden Northwood Death Syndrome (SNDS). Basically, they liked to die. And fast.

You may well find you don't need much more than stock voltage anyway, it's a pretty mild overclock :)

Personally I have a 2GHz Dothan at 2.76GHz, but I did have a 2.26GHz Celeron D at 4GHz a while back... It was still rubbish even at that speed, though! :D
 
I'd also highly recommend turning Vcore to below 1.6V. The CPU may as well go this far with the standard voltage, the trick is to find the right spot between speed and stability. And experience has shown that running the CPU on its absolute max over a longer period of time isn't ideal anyways. If you'll find 3140 MHz as the "natural limit", I'd recommend turning it down to 3100 MHz (20 x 155 MHz) or less for daily use. Then, you can find the right Vcore for that mark and use it for years to come.
 
the Interceptor
I'd also highly recommend turning Vcore to below 1.6V. The CPU may as well go this far with the standard voltage, the trick is to find the right spot between speed and stability. And experience has shown that running the CPU on its absolute max over a longer period of time isn't ideal anyways. If you'll find 3140 MHz as the "natural limit", I'd recommend turning it down to 3100 MHz (20 x 155 MHz) or less for daily use. Then, you can find the right Vcore for that mark and use it for years to come.
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I had it at 1.65 for a while, but when I ran super pie, it gave some weir errro message that ment that my CPU was unstable. So I raised the voltage a little to 1.7 and that took care of things

I plan on tunning more over the next week or so to find the sweet spot on Vcore and MHz.

Only testing will find out..
 
I was overclocking mine for 2 years or so, then it finally fried itself. It didn't overheat, but it just stopped working one day.
 
opendriver19a
I had it at 1.65 for a while, but when I ran super pie, it gave some weir errro message that ment that my CPU was unstable. So I raised the voltage a little to 1.7 and that took care of things.
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Well, technically you did the right thing, but still, 1.7V is too much for permanent usage.

You should make a table with CPU speeds and the appropriate core voltages, beginning with the standard speed and then going to the max. Usually, you'll hit a kind of barrier at one specific point, where you have to raise Vcore disproportionately more compared to the steps you made before. Stay right under that step with your speed and voltage, and you can be pretty sure your machine will never give up on you, while you should have a significantly quicker CPU.
 
Hmm, I never tried overclocking my machine, maybe I should do it. It's a Celeron 2.53GHz though so I don't think it will be "fast" anyway.
 
Well, that very much depends on what Celeron it is. Some are slow, while others are Pentiums in disguise and highly overclockable. It's not magic, it's just something you should gather some info about first, at least know a bit what you're doing and - most importantly - not push too hard.

Use the internet (wiki) and some software (CPU-z) to find out about the overclocking capabilities of your CPU and other components (motherboard, RAM). It could bring you some speed for free.
 
Sorry for the OT question but I was wondering if someone can help me understand something. These are some CPU-Z screens I took:

imagemtc0.jpg

As I understand, this screen shows how much RAM my machine has and at what speed it works (200Mhz DDR).

imagem1oe8.jpg

But this one shows just the RAM on the slot #1, which has 128MB and apparently it works at 166MHz.

imagem2wy3.jpg

And this is the RAM on slot #2, 1GB @ 200MHz.

So if this is correct, shouldn't both memory slots work at 166MHz DDR? Why does it show 200MHz on the first screen?
 
FatAssBR
Sorry for the OT question but I was wondering if someone can help me understand something. These are some CPU-Z screens I took:

As I understand, this screen shows how much RAM my machine has and at what speed it works (200Mhz DDR).

But this one shows just the RAM on the slot #1, which has 128MB and apparently it works at 166MHz.

And this is the RAM on slot #2, 1GB @ 200MHz.

So if this is correct, shouldn't both memory slots work at 166MHz DDR? Why does it show 200MHz on the first screen?
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Well, this could be correct. The first screen shows what your RAMs are actually running at, 200 MHz. The second one shows the internally saved timing tables of RAM module #1. Officially, it'll only do 133 or 166 MHz, therefore it only has timings for those speeds. That doesn't mean that it won't run at 200 MHz though, it will just turn down itself even more. The second RAM seems to be running fine, as it is capable of 200 MHz by default.

If you compare the figures of the RAM modules possible timings (screenie #2 and #3) with the actual timings they are doing (screenie #1), you'll notice that all the figures (CAS, RAS to CAS, RAS precharge and Cycle time) are higher (which means less sharp, which means more tolerant to higher MHz speeds) than the RAMs could do (at least the 2nd one could). That means that they turned themselves down to be able to cope with 200 MHz, even if RAM #1 says that it'll only do 166.

So, given that you do have two different RAMs installed, this can well be and all fits together. It's not an ideal setup though, two identical RAM modules capable of 200 MHz by default would give you a significantly better performance.

EDIT: I just spotted that your first RAM module only has 128 MB, while the second one is a 1024 MB one. I highly recommend to take out the small one and only use the large one instead. This could increase the overall performance quite a lot, as the small and slow module also slows down the large, fast one (a bit like going on holiday with two cars, a VW Beetle and a Porsche Turbo). The fact that you lose 128 megs on the other hand will most likely not be noticeable at all.

Regards
the Interceptor
 
Hm... Now I'm interested in overclocking.

Time to read up on it.

(Though overclocking anything in a laptop would probably be a bad idea.... Might just leave it be.)
 
Hey.... I wanna overclock my Intel Pentium 4 HT Computer running at 2.8 ghz, what's an ideal speed for a computer with 512 MB of RAM. I'm so confused. Thanks in advance. :)
 
Tophaticent
Hey.... I wanna overclock my Intel Pentium 4 HT Computer running at 2.8 ghz, what's an ideal speed for a computer with 512 MB of RAM. I'm so confused. Thanks in advance. :)
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If you want to know if it makes sense to think about overclocking, you (or we) need to know more about your CPU. Download the above linked CPU-z, make a screenshot of the CPU info screen and post it here.
Apart from that, the question of whether or not to overclock depends on what you do with our PC and what the other components are. If you like to play 3D games with it, but have a fairly slow and old graphics card, overclocking your CPU will result in nothing but a hotter CPU. Therefore, we need some details! 👍
 
^ And we need to know the make of your PC too. More than likely if it's from a mainstream brand like Dell, HP, etc you won't be able to overclock it.

From what you mentioned already, I have a desktop 2.8ghz Pentium 4 HT with 512mb of RAM in the household, but I can't overclock it because ADVENT locked the BIOS...
 
the Interceptor
If you want to know if it makes sense to think about overclocking, you (or we) need to know more about your CPU. Download the above linked CPU-z, make a screenshot of the CPU info screen and post it here.
Apart from that, the question of whether or not to overclock depends on what you do with our PC and what the other components are. If you like to play 3D games with it, but have a fairly slow and old graphics card, overclocking your CPU will result in nothing but a hotter CPU. Therefore, we need some details! 👍
Click to expand...

:)👍

EDIT: :indiff: Oh well. Thanks anyway you guys. Just check out the specs though.


cpuzau6.png



:)
 
Tophaticent
cpuzau6.png
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The P4 Northwood is overclockable by raising the FSB (or bus speed in this case). The next important question is what motherboard you are using. If you bought a pre-assembled PC, please post its name, if you bought parts, you should know or at least be able to find out what the motherboards name is. If both of those options are out, we can still use software to find out.

Anyway, your CPU should go up to 3.2, maybe 3.3 GHz. Before we get there, there's quite a lot of work to be done. Another interesting question is how you cool your CPU. I assume you use Intels boxed CPU cooler, which might need to be replaced. And still, it might be helpful to know what you do with your machine.
 
Wooooah. Looks like I'm no-where near ready. :lol: I'm gonna take upgrading this machine very slowly, and carefully, starting with more RAM, larger HDD, and if I can get my cousin to help me, a better processor/motherboard combination. :)
 
Wouldn't it better to decide on the CPU/Mobo before you buy the ram? You could be wasting money. If you're buying ram for 478 board, isn't that 180pin ram? I guess if its cheap enough...
 
I went to far, how do i reset the bios, my pc wont boot, even to bios, the processor makes loud beeping noises after i upped the fsb to 166 from 150, i am running a celeron d 3.33, and want it back .
 
I never over-clock anything. I've also never been known to sand down the tops of GPU's or try any number of extreme OC configurations....:rolleyes:
 

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